-----Original Message----- From: Tom Waters <twaters at usit.net> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>All the evidence we've seen on this list suggests that the decision to
>admit people who aren't black was made at the last minute. Here in
>Knoxville, the advance word was that it was for black people only. It's
>very likely that some other radicals stayed home just for this reason. So
>in fact they were excluded.
I think it was tolerant of the BRC organizers to allow the whites who showed up to attend, but it was rude of those whites to be there in the first place. Rude. Uncivil. Even if you don't approve of how a guest list is drawn up, it is rude to show up when not invited.
I have no idea why, given the hundreds of left and progressive conferences that are held each year, why it causes such angst and anguish that one, just one, major leftwing conference is designed to attract blacks only. The organizers went out of there way to state that this was not designed to promote a permanent segregation of black leftists into their own niche but as part of strengthening left tendencies within the black community IN ORDER that a more multi-racial left would be possible.
Now, Rakesh has the only reasonable argument against the gathering- not that whites or others should feel bad that they can't attend (which I think is sort of petulant) but that black-only dynamics at a conference might encourage a nationalist, anti-white solidarity. On the other hand, the opposite is just as likely. With no whites present, the diversity of views on integration might be more comfortably discussed since no "dirty linen" would be washed in front of white voyeurs.
Historically, racially and ethnically defined socialist and left groups, from the Jewish Bund to the language federations of the early CPUSA to German-speaking unionists to Irish Republican socialist groups, have been the heart of much social activism and left advancement.
Given that history, which has faded only as "whiteness" has overwhelmed those original ethnic divisions of the left, why the heck does a black-based left grouping cause such angst? These folks still identity with the broader left but they argue that practically there needs to be a black-specific Left force in order to expand the profile and pursuasiveness of the Left within the broader black community.
In the end, I am much more concerned about whether the conference achieved practical results than this whole petulant worry by some about missing one party.
--Nathan Newman